New scope on my hunting rifle

Finally got the scope my buddy James gave me last fall onto my hunting rifle!

Its not on there to stay, not yet anyway… Sorta a mock up to see what I need for permanent mounting. I had tried this just before hunting season and couldn’t get it to go on, it being a shorter tube length than the spacing between my rings/rails, it didn’t fit.

So I cheated. One rail has the cross slot offset in its length, to one end, the mount holes on the other end. It already had the offset in the right direction, and still too short, so I took it off and moved it up one mount hole… So its only got one Really tight screw holding it to the receiver right now. 

At least though I got it on there and found out that those rings actually are high enough to still use the iron sights with this scope(didn’t think it would work that way when I tried it before).

The plan has been to get a solid one piece rail with more slots on it, so I can just move one or both rings closer together and mount it.  Now I see that i will have to leave the rear rind as far back as I can and move the front ring back, the opposite as i did here, so as to keep the scope back towards me for the eye relief distance; as it is now I am barely in that distance, and have to lean my head farther forward than is comfortable.. 

Now with it on there in those rings though… Its too much. This scope is bigger/higher than the old one, and its too high. Too bulky. And especially compared to carrying the gun without a scope for the last 3 weeks… 

So I think the plan for now is to go ahead and get the one piece rail, and some low mount quick detach rings, and stick that sucker on there as low as possible. 

Sight it in, take it off, put it back, check zero/sight in. Do that about 5 times to make sure the QD rings are solid/repeatable enough to trust.  Then I can have it scoped but in a more compact package, and have the option to take the scope off quickly for thick cover/deep brush/rough terrain hunting to protect the scope, and for where the open sights would be better anyway…

But still be able to take it off outside of hunting season for more fun shooting with the open sights(gonna get a peep rear sight too like i have on my 30-30)